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What’s the Catch?

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Who does Jesus send out on mission? If we look at the names and remember their stories, it’s crystal clear. These are not the best and the brightest. Nor are they morally perfect. On their own, they will not conquer the world; they will not even be able to stick with Jesus when his life is on the line. Yet, Jesus called them and empowered them with life-transforming authority (Matthew 10:1-7).

Out of their personal experience of Jesus, early on, the Twelve were able to bring healing and liberation to those who were feeling lost, aimless, worthless before God and humanity. The combination of their words (echoing Jesus’) and actions (imitating Jesus’ all-inclusive compassion) gave credibility to their proclamation of God’s in-breaking Kingdom.

Our world today needs this Good News. People are lost, wandering – lives going nowhere. Do we think that we’re not worthy to do this crucial work? Have we ceded our responsibility to a class of “experts” (who may or may not know how to be shepherds, or are separate from the daily struggles and joys of their “sheep”)? Do we believe that sharing our experience of Jesus today, and his vision that offers forgiveness, second chances, hope…can’t make a difference? 

We have all we need. We believe in a God who’s crazy in love with us – with everyone. The Spirit of Jesus has been entrusted to us. Healing and liberation are still available.

What’s the catch? Oh yes! We need to allow ourselves to be emptied of our fear, ego, expectations – all that closes us in on ourselves. So what if we can’t take credit for all that we have been given? Are we willing to make this tradeoff – self-centeredness for the indelible experience of being loved. And sent out to help transform the lives of others.

Not in Our Neighborhood!

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Not in our neighborhood! Not in my backyard! We just don’t feel right, or comfortable, or (maybe) safe with that kind around here. We’re good, honest, hardworking folk. We just want to be left alone to live our lives the way we want. How can we say this clearly? “You just don’t belong here.” Get the message!

Beginning the 5th chapter of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 5:1-20) is the story of a man, in the territory of the Gerasenes, who is possessed by a violent, destructive spirit (like we are sometimes?). Jesus has crossed over the Sea of Galilee, and as soon as he disembarks, the possessed man comes charging out of the local graveyard to confront whomever has come into his home turf, disturbing his chosen isolation.

Here is someone so interiorly enraged and in turmoil that no one can approach, much less restrain the man. Smashing, gashing, shattering all that is within reach – including himself. Somehow he recognizes who this is who has invaded his domain – his home,   unclean from the rotting corpses and bones of the dead, surrounded by a pig (unclean animal) pasture, in a pagan (unclean) land. He screams, “What are you doing here?” This isn’t where you belong! “Are you going to hurt me even more then I already am?”

Long story short: Jesus heals and liberates this man, fills him with a profound, unknown peace. Even conceding the final request of sending the mob of demons out of the man into an extremely large herd of pigs, who rush headlong over a cliff into the sea and drown. The swineherds, knowing that this will not turn out well for them, immediately hurry to the nearest village to report what had happened. It’s not our fault.

The villagers come out to see for themselves (maybe searching for 20 freshly emptied wineskins?). Occurrences such as this don’t take place here. We like things just the way they are. Don’t change a thing. But there is the raft of floating swine corpses, there is the madman from the tombs dressed, tranquil, lucid (even pleasant?), and there is an outsider, a foreigner, a stranger. 

This intruder has entered unwelcome, interfered in their lives, destroyed a major part of the local economy… Afraid, they ask this outsider to leave, now, please. They show absolutely no regard for the one who has been healed of unimaginable torment. The man asks Jesus, if he can go with him, away from this inhuman place, this madhouse. Jesus gently directs him back to his family. He probably has work to do to reconcile the hurt that he has caused, and Jesus gives him the mission to share the Good News as he himself has experienced it.

Jesus comes into our messed up, beautiful, crazy, wonderful world. What is our response? Welcome, or You don’t belong here? Habitual fear wrestles with hope. What radical change are we willing to endure, to embrace, in order that we, those we love, those we don’t even know, our world can be healed and liberated?

It’s a Shame!

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In the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 5:38-42) Jesus is laying out another series of tough conduct guidelines for his followers. Quoting the Law of Talion (Exodus and Leviticus) Jesus states that an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth (which was a huge improvement over previous tribal punishment where unlimited retribution – whatever you could enforce – was a given) is not acceptable. “Offer no resistance to evil.” 

Then Jesus gives three stark, concrete examples: A slap in the face; a lawsuit that claims your tunic; and a demand from a soldier of the occupying army to carry his field pack. Jesus says Go along with it! Offer no resistance. This is not our usual way.

This challenge had extra weight for people of the Middle East. In the eastern cultures and societies, personal and tribal honor were extremely high (perhaps the highest) values. Bringing dishonor, disgrace or shame upon one’s family, tribe, one’s self was cause for shunning, excommunication, death. A slap in the face is a great insult.To be sued for your basic clothing is embarrassing. To aid the enemy, who is oppressively occupying your country – in any way – is treasonous. What is Jesus thinking?

It seems that Jesus is pointing out that for those who are called to bring about God’s Kingdom (us!) there is an alternative way of seeing and a different standard of behaving. This is the radical change that Jesus invites us into. If our world is to change, we need to change.

Our personal honor is not rooted in or dependent on how others treat us. The fact that we are beloved children of God cannot be undone, no matter what we do or others do to us. Our value is infinitely precious, no matter how we are treated.

We are not to resist any harm to our personal or public self, or any attempt to humiliate or degrade us. We are not to retaliate – ever. Vengeance is an empty reaction that can never be satisfied. We are to act as beloved children of a loving God toward all God’s children.

To be very clear, Jesus is not speaking here about how we are to respond (directly, forcefully) to unjust aggression or abuse of any kind towards others and/or ourselves. We need to see, name and confront evil in all its forms. But we also need to be extremely careful that our response is focused on bringing about good in a loving way – not about trying to comfort our aggrieved ego.

 

Being a Saint is Not…

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Saints alive! It seems that our notions of sanctity or holiness are often distortions. We form images of other-worldly beings who have little or nothing to do with everyone we know – even very good people! Whatever saints are, it isn’t like me – their lives are not like my life. I mess-up all the time. Why do we put them so far out of reach? Maybe because we believe that we can’t possibly do what we imagine they did to achieve the rarified air of almost godliness. 

Yet St. Paul in his letters regularly addresses the members of the communities he is writing to as saints or as God’s holy ones – sometimes just before he calls them out or corrects them for their obvious shortcomings and failures to live as God would prefer. Being a saint is not being perfect. Saints are human beings and we human beings are not capable of perfection. We can try to do good, to do better next time. 

In Scripture, holiness is linked to being a member of God’s people, chosen by God, called by God to live good, loving lives. Sounds like all of us! God looks at all of humanity and sees that we are very good. This despite the forces and movements within and around us that seduce us to selfishness. Even saints make mistakes. 

Sanctity is not passive. It invites our response. We need to cooperate somehow, trying to live, as best we can, as God desires us to live. Our cooperation cannot be perfect, because we aren’t. We are limited to what we have come to understand is, in our time, with our formative experiences, living as God wants. We can’t do more than this.

Think of people in history (even in our lifetime) who have been designated as saints: Paul of Tarsus, Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa of Calcutta… Picture the apostles before and after Jesus’ resurrection. At some point they all came to passionately dedicate their life energy to God. They were not saintly in every moment of their lives, but they wholeheartedly embraced and followed the Spirit’s lead. Over time, God became the primary focus for their lives. Responding to God’s grace made them who they were. Being a saint is not our achievement. 

Léon Bloy, a nineteenth century French writer, wrote: “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” Being a saint is God’s work. What fear so infiltrates our heart that we choose to settle for mediocrity, compromise, socially acceptable niceness, instead of letting God transform us into powerful, yet flawed, instruments of the Good: saints!

Grief Upon Grief

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Today would have been his 85th birthday. He’d survived deprivation, war, and personal losses. He, Parkinson’s and all, was resolutely committed to waiting out COVID-19 with his dear love and soul mate, Mikki. In the middle of the night, it seems, there was some kind of accident, trauma from which he could not, would not recover. I am just now back from his funeral.

For David, injustice, ignorance, arrogance, and complacency were intolerable. He vibrated with passion, and his heart was saturated in compassion. He possessed a razor sharp mind and humor to match. David was solidly a good man – rare, remarkable, memorable. There is a void, that will not be filled in this life.

It so happens that today is the celebration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus – a Feast that focuses on the fullness of God’s Love for all humanity – no one excluded, nothing held back in reserve. Seems fitting to review and to remember David this day. Late in a restless life he, found or re-found, faith, family, belonging. He realized that our time here is too short to waste wading around in any dead end.

There is deep pain, more than usual, in David’s death. Not for him, not now. After more than a year of pandemic-induced isolation, the awareness of how many moments together we missed out on magnifies the sense of loss. Yet, isn’t this true for all of humankind. We have all been deprived of innumerable, grace-filled times together with loved ones, friends, communities… that hold us closely. Hopefully we have learned to deeply appreciate what is temporarily being denied us – taking nothing for granted – and are resolved to live what days we are given, more mindfully, more fully, more gratefully.

Expanding Your Tent

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In the desert, hospitality or refusing hospitality is cause for either life or death. To offer water and shade to members of your family and tribe, as well as to any passing stranger, is a matter of survival. In a nomadic culture, tomorrow it could be you in need of this life-sustaining refreshment and rest.

Thomas Merton once wrote that today everywhere is desert. And, in a sense, we are all wandering nomads. The inner life that defines us as human is in danger of drying up and blowing away with the next windstorm. We require oases and depend on one another for gracious welcome. Hospitality is a simple, if sometimes risky, gesture necessary for us to continue on our pilgrim way.

Are there people – not like us, of course – with whom we would not share what we have if they came to our camp, to our oasis? Our future, and our growth toward fullness, as the human race, rests on our willingness to share what we have with whomever is needy. When we look out from the cool shelter of our airy tents, can we see those who are struggling just to get by as our brother, our sister, part of our self? What will it cost us – a drink of water, a few minutes, a smile, a gentle word? It cannot be said often enough. We are all in this together – like it or not. We need to learn to make room in our lives, in our tents, for those whom God will send into our lives.

Which Way Do We Lean?

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Deuteronomy, the final book of the Law/Teachings attributed to Moses, looks back on the seminal history of God’s people, with the eyes of a different age. It takes the tradition and updates it to speak clearly to the children of Israel in their new circumstances, settled and gaining some prosperity in the land of Promise.   

Toward the end of the book (Deuteronomy 30:15-19) we hear the voice of Moses, sounding like an alarm bell from the past, to alert us to the vital possibilities or mortal pitfalls of our response to God’s Will. Our choices, as limited and conditioned as they are, are the key to fullness of life and true happiness, or to death, decay and dis-ease. Our way of life determines our destiny.

We can either choose to give preeminence to God in our life or to accept God as one of several reference points to guide our course. The idols of success, comfort, illusion, convenience, accomplishment and countless others, whisper to us in our sleep and woo us in our waking hours – powerful, seductive, seemingly irresistible. They are the atmosphere in which we wander through this world, manufactured to distract and claim us away from the One who desires what is truly good for us. Media, advertising, social expectations all meld their forces to capture our lives, our very souls.

The voice of Moses cries out like a trumpet calling us to put all our trust in God – to choose living in communion with others and with God over the slow, winding, but certain, path to death. We are to choose truth over all the beautiful, but ultimately empty, lies. We are to choose compassion over self-centeredness. 

Choose life, then, so that you and all those people you are interconnected with may live well.

Not the Best Timing

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In the Gospel according to Mark (Mark 10:32-44) Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to his anticipated suffering and death, as he just reminded his disciples for the third time. Blatantly and cluelessly, the brothers, James and John, approach him with a request. They believe that Jesus is about to triumph, through the power of God, and want him to name them as his second and third in command in his certainly soon to be established kingdom. Nice that they don’t seem to care which of them is on his right and which is on his left – just so it’s the two of them.

Since Jesus’ disciples have been arguing, on a regular basis, about who among them is the greatest, this sets the other ten off. Who do those two usurping upstarts think they are! Jesus didn’t call them first! They have no more right to positions of authority and prestige than any of the rest of us! Once again, Jesus tries to penetrate their ego-centric skulls with a very difficult lesson.

Previously, Jesus used a small child to model the attitude and behavior needed by those who would take on leadership in God’s coming Kingdom. As if that wasn’t shocking and unpleasant enough, now Jesus, referring to his own way of leading, uses the image of a servant/slave. Servants do have influence, but of a kind that stands in radical opposition to how the unbelieving wield what passes for authority among them.

These faithless bosses lord it over those they subject to their commands and their whims. They (in a phrase that captures this well) make their power over others felt. Everyone around them can feel how the world’s masters use and misuse any and every advantage, deception, alliance, imposition, coercion – every imaginable stratagem – to build and to radiate a pervasive sense of their indispensable importance and value. One can physically feel the weight of their presence and self-serving actions. It manifests itself as unyielding and oppressive. This type of power comes down crushingly on people from above.

Jesus clearly and unequivocally states that this is not to be so among his followers. They are to learn and to practice the leadership of the servant/slave. By faithfully accomplishing what is asked with all their knowledge and skill, by being carefully attentive to the needs of those they serve, by desiring what is truly good for those in their charge, by earning trust, by persuading through their genuine concern and astute observations – in all these ways they are building an unshakeable foundation through effective influence – from below. It is not important who gets the credit, the praise, the notice. It is enough that they are content to serve the building up of God’s Kingdom, and that the people they serve are well.

Human Do-ings

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How did we get to this place where we have forgotten who we are, and who we were created to be? Action, movement, busy-ness, adrenaline, filling up large swaths of time with vigorous effort, expending frenzied energy – all these and more have become substitutes for living as human be-ings. I guess it beats the creeping sense of drifting emptiness that can haunt those moments when we dare to be quiet and still.

Life turns into a race with death to accomplish something that will stand out – good or evil – and most importantly, be noticed by as many people as possible. We like to have concrete output that we can point to: “Look what I did!” But what does it mean? Was anything advanced for the betterment of others? Were people lifted up out of their isolation or other types of misery? Then why are our engines running wide open, if we aren’t going anywhere?

When we feel fearful, stressed out, lost or powerless, we can easily slide into doing mode. This offers us the illusion that we have some measure of power or control or security. We don’t – but that seems too painful to admit and own. We are not gods, nor are we God.

Faith is the antidote. Trust that all is embraced by divine Love, no matter how things look or feel, allows us to be the amazing creatures we are meant to be. Just to be: present, attentive, discerning, caring in every minute. Resisting the pull of doubt and dread demands hard work and courage. This is how we can live as human beings. There is nothing more important.

Dark Night of the Body

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Imagine you are in fine health and unexpectedly you are diagnosed with a life-threatening, unpredictable, aggressive disease. Equally aggressive and powerful medical intervention is needed to preserve some semblance of your life as you have known it. Of course you agree since you haven’t yet seriously considered how the fact of death fits into your agenda.

The treatment takes you to physical states you had never imagined to visit. One by one systems in your body falter or fail, overwhelmed by the prescribed remedy, to be restored or at least patched in place by heavy doses of other medications. Exhaustion becomes your new normal and a dense fog clogs your brain, making it hard to think or reason.

You’ve had a habit of prayer for years. Suddenly you cannot pray, try as you might. Your re-made body and your thick, drifting mind have become major distractions. You struggle to focus on anything other than all that is not working as it did for your whole life – until now. You feel yourself being dragged down. God, enveloped by the mental mists, feels distant or non-existent. 

How to pray when you can’t pray? Ignatius of Loyola has some very practical recommendations for when we enter into desolation – whatever its origins. Look back over your life, not in comparison with its present circumstances, remember and name as many of the countless blessings you have enjoyed (and are still present – though hidden) as you can. Try to feel what it felt like when God was there, particularly those unforgettable touches of grace. God is still here, now. God is faithful.

Act as though nothing between God and you has changed. From God’s side it hasn’t! You just aren’t able to see clearly in this moment. Do your part. Put time and effort into prayer and love for those around you, as before. Especially if you don’t feel like it. You have all the time in the world. Since you can’t do much else, wait for the day when the sunshine of grace will burn through the temporary fog. Even on the grayest, gloomiest days, the sun is still there, above the blankets of cloud. 

A huge assist comes from entrusting your current state of neediness to your community. Ask them to carry you, in your weakness, through this dark and difficult time. Their faith and prayer will sustain you, if you let them. You will be able to keep going because of their love crying out ceaselessly on your behalf.

Throughout life, and particularly as we age, there are, and will be plenty of occasions where our physical condition fails and weighs us down with it, rendering us dysfunctional. Good thing – life and prayer do not depend on how we are feeling. God’s love is the sole constant force in the physics of spirit, even in the dark.